Fred Noonan was born
seven years before the start of the twentieth century. By the time he became
Amelia Earhart’s navigator, he was embarked on a second career at the age
of 44 and had become one of the leading, if not the foremost, pioneering
aerial navigators of his day. This tall, slender, six footer spent about
twenty years as a merchant seaman, starting as an able bodied crew member
before the mast, surviving World War I, and working his way up to Master
of ocean going steamships. He left the oceans for the skies when he became
an air navigator with Pan American in Miami and eventually moved to the west
coast in 1935 to pioneer the Manila Clipper transpacific route. He left Pan
American after seven years and joined Amelia Earhart for her around-the-world
flight. At the time he joined Earhart he was not only changing jobs, but
his personal life as well. He had divorced his first wife and then remarried
only a few months before the start of the fatal world flight.

Early History

He
came into the world on April 4, 1893 as Frederick Joseph Noonan
and was baptized into the Catholic religion, and his Southside Chicago
Irish community, a few weeks later on the 23rd of April.1
St. Rose of Lima, his baptismal parish, had been founded to serve
60 Irish families living west of the Union Stock Yards in the old
Town of Lake; an area of Southside Chicago also referred to as Back
of the Yards. The parish was dedicated July 8, 1883.2
In the year previous to the parish’s establishment, Fred’s father,
Joseph T. Noonan, arrived in the community at 21 years of age. He
was born in Maine of Irish parents.3
Fred’s mother, Catharine, who was two years younger than Joseph,4 came
to Cook county the same year as her husband to be. She had immigrated
from England with her family, the Richard Egans.5

Joseph,
his father, and the Egan family lived in a number of different Cook
county residences before Fred’s birth, although no record has been
found of Joseph’s and Catherine’s marriage. Little is known about
Fred's early life. No information on other siblings has been uncovered
suggesting that he was an only child. However, his childhood must
have been dramatically affected by the tragic death of his mother,
which occurred just two months before his fourth birthday in 1897.
She died of pulmonary tuberculosis at St. Elizabeth's hospital.6 In
that same year, both his father Joseph and Richard Egan, his father-in-law,
are recorded as sharing the same residence according to the Chicago
city directory. They also shared the same home in 1893, the year
Fred was born. This information indicates Fred spent his earliest
years in the company of an extended family including his maternal
grandparents, at least until his mother’s death.

In
1900 Noonan’s father is listed in the census as living alone in
a boarding house. No census record of Fred exists. Also in the early
1900s, school records list Fred as having attended three different
elementary schools with three different home addresses and a different
guardian of record each year.7 This may
indicate that after his mother’s death he was bounced around among
various relations or, perhaps, was in some type of foster care.
No information has been found regarding any aunts and uncles from
his mother’s family who may also have lived in the same Southside
Irish community and who could have taken him in.

The
Sailor

Fred
said he “left school in summer of 1905 and went to Seattle, Washington.”8 It
is more likely that he left for the west coast in 1906, however, as
school records indicate that he entered Chicago’s Dore elementary
school in September 1905. It is not clear how he got to Seattle, why
he went, or who he went with. It is, however, very clear that he shipped
aboard the British sailing bark Crompton
on June 20 1910.9 He is listed on the
crew manifest as being an 18 year old (only a slight exaggeration)
USA citizen from Illinois. This was probably the second time he
shipped out as a sailor because his merchant marine records list
the bark Hecla as his first vessel.

Noonan’s
career as a merchant seaman is documented by US Shipping Board,
Emergency Fleet Corporation records.10
The USSB was an emergency agency organized in 1917 to regulate maritime
commerce and develop a naval auxiliary and merchant marine. It was
eventually consolidated into the Shipping Service in 1934. Much
of the information in the records came from Noonan himself, and
consists primarily of listings of ship assignments.

He was an
active sailor from 1910 until 1929. However, not a lot of detail
is known about his merchant marine life beyond his ship assignments
(see Maritime History). He began his sea
service on a sailing ship and listed nine windjammers to which he
was assigned during the earlier years of his ocean going career.
Fred traveled the world as an itinerant seaman during the first
half of his merchant marine service and then essentially settled
down in New Orleans about 1922. He originally shipped out from Seattle
in 1910 and there is no address listed for him until 1917, possibly
because no records were kept. At that point, and for the subsequent
three years, he had residences in New York City. In 1921 he lived
in Galveston, Texas and a year later he had a home on Claiborne
Street in New Orleans.

During WWI
he apparently shipped aboard a few munitions ships going from New
York to Liverpool. In fact, he just missed losing his life on one.
As he says, “On or about the 22nd day of January 1917 I signed
on the S/S Cairnhill and was on board two days. When the S/S
Cairnhill sailed I was on shore and missed the ship. On her
voyage to Europe she was torpedoed and sank and everything was lost
including my passport.” His application provides a physical
description. Fred stood a tall, slim 6′1/4″, had blue
eyes, auburn hair, and a ruddy complexion. In addition, he had a scar
at the base of his left thumb and “protrusion on forehead
over right eye.” The bump
on his forehead is confirmed by later pictures of Fred with Amelia
Earhart.

During his
merchant marine career Noonan progressed steadily from an able bodied
seamen before the mast to captain of large ocean going steamships.
First rated Quartermaster in 1911, then Bosun’s Mate in 1913, he
rose to Bosun in 1919. He applied for an officer’s berth and became
a Second Mate in 1921, a Chief Mate in 1923, and received his first
Master’s license January 26, 1926. Even after making the transition
to an aviation career, he retained his captain’s papers. His last
license was issued to him at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, California,
where he originally lived while pioneering the Manila Clipper route
for Pan Am. It is dated February 5, 1936 and is an unrestricted
Master's license for “Master, steam and motor, any gross tonnage
– any ocean and 1st Class Pilot upon Mississippi river from Southport,
LA to the sea; also Industrial canal from Mississippi river to Lake
Pontchartrain, LA.”

On
July 11, 1927, the world sailor dramatically changed his life. He
married Miss Josie M. Sullivan.11 The
marriage ceremony, conducted by Father O’Reilly of Saint Peter’s
Catholic church in Jackson, Mississippi, took place at high noon.
The happy couple left by car for the Gulf coast and had planned
to honeymoon in Cuba.12 At the time Fred
was 34 and Josie 26 years old.

Josie
was employed as a secretary and had lived in New Orleans for about
four years.13 She moved there with her
mother from Savannah after her father died. According to a friend
of Noonan, “he met her, he told me, at a dancing school show.”14
After their marriage, Josie continued as a stenographer with the
Portland Cement Association and Fred worked for the Mississippi
Shipping Company on various vessels and also as an assistant ship
keeper for their reserve fleet.

The Aviator

Sometime
around the beginning of 1930, while living in New Orleans, Fred
made another major change in his life. On January 5, while registering
to vote in ward 4 of precinct 11, he gave his occupation as “aviator.”
This may have been slightly premature because he wasn’t issued his
pilot’s certificate until January 23. At that time he was issued
a “limited commercial pilot certificate #11833 with ratings airplane
single engine land” from the Airman Certification Branch of the
FAA.15 Obtaining his pilot’s license
had required 50 total hours flight time at Menefee air field and
allowed him to carry passengers for hire within a 10 mile radius
of the airport. His intention, however, may never have been focused
on piloting. His next door neighbor recalled, “I remember when he
quit the sea because he wanted to take up aviation, not necessarily
as a pilot, but in a navigating capacity.”16
In the years that followed, Fred became one of a handful of pioneers
in long distance aerial navigation and achieved a reputation as
one of the best.

In
mid-1930 he began his aviation career with the New York, Rio & Buenos
Aires Line.17 Not long after he started
with his new employer, Pan American Airways (PAA) acquired the company.
By October of the same year Noonan had been transferred from Miami
to become Field Manager in Haiti. Pan Am established its facility
there in Port Au Prince in January of 1929.18

Fred
remained in Port Au Prince until March, 1933. At that time W.G.
Eldridge replaced him as airport manager. Noonan came back to Miami
in a continuation of his Pan Am career. He is reputed to have been
an air navigation instructor, maybe even the head of PAA’s navigation
section. However, there is no definitive information on his exact
role while in Miami. He is listed as an “instr. Pan Am Airways”
(1934) in the Miami city directory. He made an inspection trip to
Santiago, Cuba, in April of 1934 as an Assistant Airport Manager19
and is also listed in the 1935 Miami city directory as “Asst. Mgr.”
Perhaps he came back to Miami primarily as a navigation instructor
and the assistant airport manager duties were subsequently added
to his responsibilities.

At
2 p.m. on March 31, 1935, the four-engine, flying boat China Clipper
made its first landing in San Francisco Bay. It had arrived at its
new home on the island of Alameda with Fred Noonan on board as the
navigation officer. This was the first of the variously named Clipper
airplanes and crew to arrive on the west coast for PAA. The China
Clipper had started its flight in Miami on the 27th, stopped at
Acapulco and San Diego, and taken a side trip to San Pedro in Southern
California on its way to the new base.20
After arriving in Alameda little time was lost in developing and
testing the flight route to Manila. During the first two weeks of
April the crew conducted local test hops, including one of about
one thousand miles out and back to Trinidad Head.21
This was all in preparation for and anticipation of attempting the
first leg of the Manila route to Hawaii.

Between
the 16th and 22nd of April, the China Clipper made its historic
first trip to Honolulu and back. The first step to Manila had been
successfully completed. A few weeks after this flight, Noonan provided
a detailed look at his navigation procedures in a letter written
to Lt. Commander P.V.H. Weems,22 replying
to a congratulatory letter he had received earlier in the month.
Weems was a naval officer who had been a navigation instructor at
the Naval Academy and had written one of the earliest air navigation
books in 1931 (Air Navigation, McGraw-Hill). He later retired
to establish a school for air navigation, the Weems System Of Navigation.
Weems was instrumental in making navigation from an airplane easier
by simplifying the calculations required for celestial navigation
and inventing some easier to use tools. He also contributed substantially
to increasing its accuracy through his involvement in the development
of the “second setting” watch, the first timepiece which could
accurately be set to the nearest second. Weems was a friend and
navigation advisor to many long distance flyers of the time, including
Admiral Richard Byrd and Charles Lindbergh. Fred thought very highly
of Weems, saying in his letter, “Having long considered you the
foremost authority on the subject of aerial navigation,” and had
a continuing correspondence with him. He also carried one of the
second setting watches.

In his letter,
Noonan explained to Weems that the navigation equipment he used
was of his own choosing, based on his previous experience and the
specific tasks required. He mentioned that he used general, coastal,
and harbor marine charts; aviation strip charts of the California
coast; VP-3 and VP-4 aircraft plotting sheets; a Longines Civil
Time chronometer and a Longines second-setting watch set to G.C.T.;
two sextants (Pioneer bubble octant and mariner’s sextant as a “preventer”),
Captain Field’s improved type parallel rulers; and a Dalton Mark
VII navigational computer.

He further
indicated that the actual navigation, “was comparable with such
as would be practiced afloat – fixes were determined entirely by
stellar observations at night. These fixes were more reliable than
would be possible by crossing a line of position with a D.F. bearing,
due to the amount of error which would be introduced by even a small
angular error in the long range D.F. bearings. By day, having only
the single heavenly body for determination of lines of position,
we did cross the bearings. However, during daylight hours we were
nearer the radio stations and consequently the error introduced
was generally considerably reduced.” He said his accuracy was, “very
gratifying” at within ten miles. He felt the greatest problem was
determining the drift angle of their course. While water flares
were useful when the ocean surface was visible, a lot of the flight
was above solid cloud cover. He concluded the letter by saying he
had used the Greenwich Hour Angle exclusively since first published
in the Air Almanac and also uses Dreisonstok exclusively for computing
his observations.

After the
Honolulu flight, preparation for the next Manila route test leg
included eight local hops. During this time Fred taught other navigators
for the Clipper service. He is listed as “navigational instructor”
on a number of local flights. In the latter part of June, 1935,
the second leg of the Manila route (Alameda to Honolulu to Midway)
was successfully flown. The next survey flight, out to Wake and
back, was completed in August. The trial route out to Guam, the
fourth and final island stepping stone to Manila, was accomplished
in October.

After
seven months of preparation the big day came on November 22, 1935.
The first scheduled flight to Manila began when the China Clipper
lifted off from the San Francisco Bay at 3:47 pm.23
This was the inaugural flight for what would become routine, once
a week transpacific service. The flight left Alameda with Noonan
as the navigation officer, Captain Edwin Musik in command, and a
crew of seven. They reached Manila on Friday, Nov. 29th. The China
Clipper triumphantly concluded the first transpacific airline service
by returning to its Alameda base in time for the holidays, arriving
on December 6th. Fred was welcomed back by his wife, Josie, who
was waiting dockside after having earlier joined him on the west
coast.

During
1936 Noonan flew the Manila Clipper route seven times, at least
once on each of the Clipper airplanes – China Clipper, Hawaiian
Clipper, and Philippine Clipper. On one flight, in March of 1936,
he got off in Hawaii on the outbound route and re-boarded the Clipper
on its way back through Honolulu. This gave him about three weeks
in the islands, possibly for a well earned vacation. The last Manila
flight he navigated was on the Philippine Clipper. It left and returned
on the same one year anniversary dates as the inaugural flight he
was a part of the previous year.24

Around the World

The
start of the new year heralded new beginnings for Noonan and his
life became rather hectic amid some dramatic changes. First, he
left Pan American Airways. Three Clippers had been put into service
and they were flying weekly schedules to Manila. The chief pilot,
Edwin Musick, realized the constant long distance, over water flying
was taking a physical and mental toll on the crews. The Manila trip
was 12 days of flying without proper rest intervals and the pilots
were averaging many more hours per month than the limits established
by Department of Commerce regulations. Flight surgeon examinations
before and after each trip found some dangerous levels of fatigue.
The strain also led to some growing unrest among the junior pilots.
They contended that the work was far more difficult than that of
other airlines and also voiced concerns over compensation and promotion
issues. Musick tried to get PAA management to recognize and respond
to the pilot complaints; however, his entreaties made no headway
with the company. Musick attempted to explain the situation back
to the crews by saying they needed to be patient until Pan American
could straighten out some things in Alaska, China and South America.
Fred Noonan responded by resigning immediately. He felt they had
lived on promises for a year and he was through with doing it any
more.25

After
quitting his job, he spent ten days during the latter part of February
and the first week in March in El Paso, Texas, to establish residence
so he could obtain a divorce from Josie. He stayed at the Hilton
Hotel and filed the divorce papers in Juarez, Mexico on March 3rd.26
On March 13th he was announced, unexpectedly, as an additional crewman
for Earhart's world flight. Although no formal statement was made,
Harry Manning told the press that, “Noonan’s going along with us
as far as Howland.”27 On March 17th
Fred’s divorce was granted. On the same day he also began the around-the-world
flight with Amelia when her Electra lifted off a wet Oakland runway
and turned to follow the course he set for Hawaii.

This 1500
mile first step around the world included Amelia as pilot, Paul
Mantz as advisor, Harry Manning as radio operator, and Noonan as
navigator. Although they had a couple of mechanical malfunctions,
it proved a generally smooth shake down leg for the many hours of
flying to come, especially from a navigation perspective. Noonan’s
efforts had them arriving exactly where they wanted to be just as
there was enough light to adequately see. He had slowed their airspeed
enroute to time their arrival with daybreak. And he had used a DF
steer from the Makapuu low-frequency radio beacon, asking Amelia
to keep it ten degrees off the right side of the nose, to accurately
position them. The Lockheed touched down on Wheeler field in the
very early morning after nearly 16 hours in the air.

Two
days later at 5:40 am, with Manning in the cockpit and Fred Noonan
in back, Earhart pushed the throttles wide open to begin the next
leg of the world flight to Howland island, the longest over-water
distance. The original plan was for Noonan to get off in Howland
and return to the States on the Coast Guard cutter Shoshone.
Harry Manning was going to go further into the trip and get off
at Darwin, Australia. Amelia would then continue the rest of the
flight around the world on her own. However, a day earlier, Earhart
had asked Fred to go at least as far as Darwin, and possibly all
the way around the world with her. Noonan had agreed.28

Unfortunately,
during the take off run Amelia lost control of the big twin Lockheed,
collapsing one gear, and substantially damaging the plane. No one
was hurt and Noonan was apparently unfazed by the crack up. Amelia
said, “... when the first men reached the plane and opened the door
they found Fred methodically folding up his charts. He says that
when I fly again he is ready to go along.”29
Noonan, in his account, said “I was sitting in the back of the plane
among my navigating instruments. I immediately sensed something
was wrong. However, she succeeded in bringing the plane to a halt
so perfectly and so smoothly, I was hardly jarred at all. She certainly
has plenty of courage.”30

During
the late evening of the same day as the accident, Amelia and her
three crew members boarded the SS Malolo and sailed back
to Los Angeles where they disembarked on March 25th. The plane followed
later, was unloaded at the San Pedro docks on April 3rd and taken
to Lockheed’s Burbank plant, where it had been originally designed
and manufactured, to be repaired. After Fred got to the Los Angeles
area on Thursday, the new lady in his life, Mary Beatrice Martinelli
(generally known as Bea), drove down from the San Francisco area
to meet him. He had, reportedly, met her in Oakland where she had
a hair salon when he was employed with Pan American. Without any
fanfare they drove to Yuma, Arizona, and got married on Saturday,
March 27th.31 The next day Amelia Earhart
announced from LA that Noonan would be her navigator, and sole companion,
for the entire world flight which she hoped to get underway again
on the first of May.

A
week later on Sunday in Fresno, about 200 miles north of L.A. while
probably on their way back from visiting Bea's relatives in Modesto,
Fred Noonan crossed into the on-coming lane of traffic and collided
with another car. His wife sustained “extensive” cuts on her
knee and others to her scalp. The family in the other car was treated
for minor bruises. Fred was cited for “driving in the wrong lane.”32

For
the next attempt at the world flight Amelia decided to keep everything
very low key. The day the repaired airplane was delivered to her,
May 20th, she flew up to Oakland, stopped for a short while, and
then returned to Burbank. Her takeoff from Oakland was the unannounced
start of the world flight. The next day she took off from Burbank
with Fred Noonan, her husband George Putnam, and her mechanic Bo
McKneely on board. They headed for Miami, Noonan’s old PAA base
of operations, and the announced beginning of the world attempt.
The flight to the east coast was the shakedown of the newly repaired
Lockheed. They stopped first at Tucson, Arizona and then at Shushan
airport in New Orleans. On the way to Miami from New Orleans Fred
did some very precise over-water dead reckoning navigation, missing
his arrival point by less than three miles after a trip of about
450 miles.33

On
May 29th in Miami, Earhart officially announced that the world flight
would continue from there on an eastward global circumnavigation
and would terminate back in Oakland which she considered the official
starting point. She said, “In the middle of March last, I started
westward from Oakland, California, on what was to be a round the
world flight as near the equator as possible. That attempt ended
after a 2400 mile trip across the Pacific with an accident at Honolulu.
Now, 70 days later my Electra is fit once more to fly and she and
I hope to cover 28,000 miles as originally planned – but heading
into dawns instead of sunsets and ending our flight at Oakland.”34
The next leg of the journey would be from Miami to San Juan, Puerto
Rico. It started when the big Lockheed lifted off the runway of
Miami Municipal Airport, at around 6am the morning of June 1st,
and headed southeast.

In
Lae, New Guinea, at the end of June after successfully completing
most of the world flight, Amelia and Fred had just two more stops
to go before the final one in Oakland, California – first to Howland
island and then Hawaii. The flight to Howland, a mere speck in the
Pacific, depended heavily on Fred’s navigation which required an
accurate time check from a radio station. Late in the evening of
July 1st, after a number of unsuccessful attempts over the previous
two days, Fred was finally able to set his watch. It was three seconds
slow both then and the next morning at 8am in a final time check
with a Saigon radio station.35 They were
ready to go. At 10am, with a maximum load of fuel to cover the 2,556
miles to Howland, Amelia and Fred took off on their final flight.
After being airborne for about 20 hours, the last transmission ever
heard from them was recorded by the Coast Guard ship Itasca,
which was awaiting their arrival:

EARHART TO ITASCA:
WE ARE ON THE LINE 157 337. WE WILL REPEAT THIS MESSAGE WE WILL
REPEAT THIS ON 6210 KCS; WAIT; SIGNALS HEARD ON 3105 KHZ WITH VOICE
AND SIGNAL STRENGTH 5. QUESTIONABLE EARHART TRANSMISSION: WE ARE
RUNNING ON NORTH AND SOUTH LINE.36

The
next day amid packing cases containing part of their household effects,
Mary Bea, Fred’s wife of three months said, “Fred had had several
good business offers and we planned to make our home in southern California
which we both love so well. It seems I’ve hardly seen him since we
married. He was only back from the first flight a little while and
then he was off on this one.”37

On
July 6th in Oakland, Mary Bea received a letter which Fred had sent
from Bandoeng, Java. In it he said, “Amelia is a grand person for
such a trip. She is the only woman flier I would care to make such
a trip with because, in addition to being a fine companion, she
can take hardships as well as a man – and work like one.”38

January
14 - Arrived at NY on the New York. "Sail on Br. Vessel for
France on Monday or Tuesday next. Don't know the name of vessel. Am
shipping with Dunphy Keegan, shipping agents."

January
20 - Description Of Applicant form. Provides physical description
of Fred and is sworn to by William King of Waco, TX. who also says
he knew FN for 2 years.

January
20 - Duplicate application for Seaman's Certification Of American
Citizenship (#730). Addressed to Collector Of Customs, Port of NY.
Says he has been employed as seaman since 1905.

Bark
Rhine

Jan.
31 - Dec. 27. Rated AB. Boston Lumber Co.

1918

January
3 - Notarized document from NY. Fred attests his residence (25 South
St, NY) and birth date/place. He further swears that he was issued
a Certificate of American Citizenship, serial No. 730, which has been
lost. The details are stated as, "On or about the 22nd day of January
1917 I signed on the S/S Cairnhill and was on board two days.
When the S/S Cairnhill sailed I was on shore and missed the
ship. On her voyage to Europe she was torpedoed and sank and every
thing was lost including my passport." He further asks for a duplicate
certificate.

January
3 - Issued Seaman's Certificate (#44386) Of American Citizenship (Dept.
of Commerce, Bureau of Navigation) to replace original lost on torpedoed
vessel.

March
21 - Application for officer's berth by FN. Current position given
as 2nd Mate aboard Lake Otsquago. Residence listed as 1821
Avenue E, Galveston, TX. Currently holding 2nd Mate Ocean certificate
dated 2/15/21, never suspended. Apprenticed with Sail & Steam line.
Last position held was Boatswain with West Hampton (USSB owners).
Left due to vessel being laid up. Sea service particulars attached.

NOTE:
Much of the maritime history is from a personnel service records
file for "Subject, Noonan, Frederick Jos., Deck Officer". File number
3-A-1. This file from US Shipping Board, Emergency Fleet Corporation,
Operating Department Division. This file and related information came
from the National Archives.

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